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Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Going Abroad 7 Miles Away: A Tale of Survival and Triumph

I get the Sedano's Supermarket ad in the mail every Tuesday. They have some great deals. 4 lbs of yellow onions for $0.99. Bananas, $0.39/lb. Avocados, 2 for $1. I drive by a Sedano's every Tuesday night on the way home from teaching.

I was out of bananas. If you know me... I LOVE bananas. I sometimes eat 5 or more in a day. I feel similarly about potatoes. They sustain me throughout workouts and keep me trim!

So I stopped at Sedano's. I was nervous. I was the only native English speaker in sight. It was like walking into a foreign country. A portal to the unknown, if you will. I headed to the produce section, and I was that weirdo lingering by people who were having a conversation near the bananas. That was me. I wanted to hear them speak... unfortunately, it was too fast but I could pick out a few words. Hey... I've only been learning for five weeks!!

Picked up my bananas and onions and headed down towards the frozen foods section in search of frozen peaches. On the way, I passed two employees talking in an aisle. As I squeezed by, I said, "Con permiso." ... and one of them responded something! In Spanish! I only understood "Señora". I didn't care. I'm a Señora!!

So I found raspberries. And only raspberries. But I wanted peaches, too, so I went back and found one of the employees I'd passed, and I said, "Dónde está la fruta... frozen?" He understood me! But he didn't know where the frozen fruit was. So he directed me to his compadre, Delgado. I said, again, "Dónde está la fruta... frozen?... Fruta... peaches... amarilla?" (yellow!) And he understood me! He took me right to the frozen fruit section... which, it was so tiny, no wonder I missed it.

In case you're wondering, they didn't have peaches. Only mango, blackberries, and raspberries.

Onward to the checkout! I got to the cashier and I said, "Buenas tardes!" To which I was corrected that it's actually "noches" ... it was already after 7. So "Buenas noches" I said. Then, I said "Estoy tratando de aprender Español!"(I am trying to learn Spanish!) And I can't repeat the sentence to you, I understood her to say, "Are you taking a class?" I replied, "No, aprendo en mi casa." (I learn at my house). She nodded. A few seconds later, I added, jokingly, "...y en el supermercado!" and she LAUGHED :) Not a chuckle, a full-on laugh. So I not only was understood by la cajera, I also made her laugh :)

So there you have it, five weeks of learning Spanish and I made it through a grocery store. It can only get better from here :) My goal by the time we depart for Ecuador is to understand and be understood. If I can get to the fruit by saying "fruta amarilla" ... cool. But if I've gotten this far in five weeks, I'm hopeful things will continue to progress swimmingly from here!

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Not much other news... today I didn't have very much time at all to work on Spanish... SO much work came in and I just try to stay on top of it all, and when I get done, then I work on Spanish, so it doesn't pile up. Well, I never got done today. As soon as I thought I was done, there was more in my inbox. I was very frustrating today... there were tears. In fact, I STILL have about 60 pages that came in about an hour ago that I started to read until I said y'know what, I've had it. This can wait. Plugged in my headphones and worked on some Spanish audio exercises online. And now I'm blogging.

We have been cleaning out the house lately. Challenging ourselves with getting rid of stuff we haven't touch and don't need or use. It is addicting. We're planning a garage sale soon, too, so hopefully make some money off of this unwanted stuff. I've been selling some DVDs and even my old iPhone online, so that's helping, too.

But really the only thing I want to do all day every day is español... I want to:

watch Spanish TV

listen to Spanish music (really enjoying the tunes from Camila, Reik, and Jesse & Joy)

translate some song lyrics to learn the words and train my ears

work through DuoLingo (free, top-rated language tool online)

work through CatSpanish

work through StudySpanish topics and quizzes (reinforcement)

write out sentences using new vocabulary

create flashcards and practice sheets

listen to the Camino de éxito audio exercises

read Spanish magazines

talk to my Colombian mailman, Mauricio (he is awesome!!!)

take live Spanish classes for $3 on Verbling.com

SO MANY things to do to help me learn Spanish quicker ... but I have to work. UGH. Can you believe that?! ;-) Seriously, I am trying to be happy that I even have work, but it's hard when I want to do something else so much more. Today I literally worked from 8:00am to 7:00pm... made a ton of money but was so exhausted by the time I was done. Tomorrow I've got a pretty open schedule till about 4:00pm when I have to go teach again. I like my work, I do... but when you REALLY want to do something/accomplish something it's kind of all consuming... can't even sleep at night because I'm running through all the words I learned in my head. Who knew I'd EVER want to learn another language? I sure didn't... but I've rekindled that excitement I had when I was learning German and I'm loving it. Soaking it up like a sponge.

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About Us

Hi! We're Ben and Caitlin Pyle from Orlando, Florida and we're chronicling our preparations for our next adventure to Cuenca, Ecuador. We will be there in July 2015 and plan to stay for one year! Come visit!